


gently in the cold, dark earth

by keysmashlesbian



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: 11k of sylvain mourning thats the fic, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Five Stages of Grief, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-09 09:42:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20992724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keysmashlesbian/pseuds/keysmashlesbian
Summary: “Where’s Felix?” Sylvain asks instead.Ashe sucks in a deep breath through his nose. Then another. Then he’s nearly hyperventilating. Sylvain feels the panic rise to his throat.“Ashe, where is he?”“I don’t know.” Ashe’s voice wavers, frail and hoarse.The cold encompasses him.-Felix doesn't come home, and winter is a cruel time for grief.





	gently in the cold, dark earth

**Author's Note:**

> hello, here's a study of grief! 
> 
> thanks to keely @karasunonolibero for betaing and telling me she cried in her discord voice chat
> 
> title is from "work song" by hozier

**Ethereal Moon**

Sylvain wakes up after Felix leaves.

He isn’t surprised or offended when Felix doesn’t say goodbye. It’s what he does. Back at the Academy, when things were simpler and less bloody, he’d walk off mid-conversation without warning. It was a surefire way to piss people off, but it made Sylvain scream with laughter every time.

He was the only one who followed Felix.

It feels strange, now, to know Felix walked off and he isn’t following. The only reason Sylvain isn’t going along with him to Gideon is because he was a moron and sprained his ankle a few weeks ago. It’s still twinging, so Ashe dismissed him from the mission so he could heal properly. It was a small job anyway, and Felix himself was trying to convince their battalion to thin out. He didn’t think they needed to attract any more attention than necessary.

Felix had been pissed when Sylvain told him he wasn’t going. He tried to hide it, grumbling about how he’d have one less boulder to roll through the mud and snow, but Sylvain knew he was disappointed. Having a familiar face in battle kept them grounded to the earth, and not pulled into the nightmarish horror surrounding them. All it took was a brush of shoulders, a clank of weaponry, even the light touch on the back of the hand to remind the other where he was. Who he was. Who was standing right beside him, making certain he’d get home.

Sylvain rubs his eyes and looks out his bedroom window, at the long road leading away from the Western Gautier Estate. His breath fogs up the glass, and he clumsily wipes it away with his sleeve. He sees the fading press of hooves in the snow, the only sign that Felix was actually here.

-

Ingrid’s Pegasus is named Jeralt. She gave it the name shortly after the real, human Jeralt was killed in battle, to honor his memory. It was one of the few things to make the professor smile in the weeks following his death, and Sylvain remembers the wash of relief that flooded the Blue Lions classroom when it reached her eyes.

Sylvain’s blood runs cold at the thought of the professor. It’s been two years since the fall of Garreg Mach, and two years since any of them had seen her. She disappeared in the chaos along with Lady Rhea, but Sylvain is certain she didn’t run away. That isn’t who she was—is. He’s convinced that she didn’t abandon them, but it’s not something they all discuss out of fear. Fear that she was captured by Edelgard’s soldiers. Fear that she’s dead.

Fear that she joined the other side.

They don’t discuss it. They don’t discuss anything of morbidity, not since the war started. Only the facts devoid of any lingering feelings of regret and loss. It doesn’t do anyone good to dwell.

Ingrid swoops in a week after Felix leaves, Jeralt’s white wings spread majestically and blending in with the sky. He nuzzles at Sylvain’s face when they land, and Sylvain laughs at the sloppy tongue that catches in his hair.

“Easy, easy Jeralt.”

“I didn’t realize Leonie was here,” Ingrid quips as she slides off her saddle.

Sylvain laughs, pulling her into a hug. She chopped her hair recently, for convenience sake, and he’s honestly grateful he doesn’t have to worry about her braid catching on his gauntlets anymore. She looks older this way, but Sylvain guesses they all do. Felix doesn’t, though, not really. He hasn’t aged at all since the war started. Maybe because his face has always been hardened, fixed in a battle-ready glare. It’s part of the Fraldarius charm.

They settle inside, sharing a pot of tea and a basket of sweets Mercedes sent his way. It warms his heart when he gets little signs that his friends are okay, and they’re still the people they were at the Academy. Mercedes is still baking. Annette is still writing songs. Felix is off swinging a sword around.

Speaking of.

“Have you heard from Felix and Ashe’s group?”

Ingrid shakes her head as she swallows her tea, holding the cup close. Her breath comes out in chilled puffs.

“Not yet. They’re expected to be back within the week though. It wasn’t anything too serious.”

“Just some wayward bandits, right?”

Ingrid nods, chewing on a pastry. “We handled crazier situations back at the Academy. Do you mind?”

She’s gesturing to the remaining treats, and Sylvain shakes his head. “Eat up. Not like Felix is going to want any of this.”

“He’s still staying here?” Ingrid asks as she fills her plate.

Sylvain nods. “Has been for the past few months. He can’t stand it back at home. Not with the way his old man is talking.”

Ingird nods, humming with understanding. “I’m glad you have some company. Sorry it had to be Felix.”

He can’t relate to that. Sylvain was fucking elated Felix had shown up to his empty house. His own parents were rarely at home, opting instead to work on the front lines like the heroes they wanted to be. Sylvain was grateful, if not a little lonely. The Western Gautier Estate was a large cabin on a lake, built for his parents to escape the business of their work and take some time off. Sylvain’s father had handed him the keys when he returned from Garreg Mach. His mother insisted it was to help him grow independent as a battalion leader, making his own plans and strategies with his troops. His father gave him a wink and a comment about privacy.

It had infuriated him, filling him with an angry, helpless shame as he accepted the gift and moved his belongings West. He was insulted that his father would still expect him to be wife hunting with the kingdom collapsing, Fodlan imploding, and Dimitri…well. It tinged his new home with a bitterness that stuck to the walls and sank into the carpet, and no matter how many meetings he held or nights he spent obsessively cleaning, the sour taste lingered.

Until three months ago, when Felix had banged on his door, bag over his shoulder and horse tied up on his lawn.

“Any vacancy?” Felix asked, like it wasn’t the middle of the night and they hadn’t spoken in months.

Sylvain had to bite his cheek to keep from smiling.“We’re closed. Try the brothel down the road.”

Felix elbowed his way in regardless, and Sylvain couldn’t stop his ear splitting grin from breaking out. He took in the size of Felix’s bag, the sheer amount of stuff he brought, and tilted his head.

“Moving in?”

Felix threw his bag down and huffed, crossing his arms. His face was red, from the cold or from whatever he was bottling up, Sylvain wasn’t sure yet.

“My father’s being an imbecile.”

“When isn’t he?”

Felix smirked, but it fell quickly.

“I just…I can’t listen to him talk about dying anymore. I can’t.”

“Why are our parents so obsessed with death?” Sylvain flopped down onto the plush couch, kicking his slippered feet up. He takes a sip of ale, and offers his cup when Felix raises an eyebrow.

Felix slid into the seat next to him, shoving his feet back onto the floor.

“Because they’re fools who can’t see the value of their own lives now.”

“Well, damn.”

“No, I’m serious.” Felix kicked his tall boots off. He started wearing ridiculous, insulated thigh highs when the war began, and it sent Sylvain spiraling to watch him peel the fabric down his legs. He had to choke down an offer to help. “They’ll throw their lives away at the drop of a hat, and for what? A nobility? A title? They’re fools who’d leave anyone behind without question.”

“Well, why do you keep going, then? If not for the Kingdom?”

Felix ran a hand through his hair, letting some of it fall out of his bun. It’s still damp from the snow.

“For us.” Sylvain felt something strange spike through him as Felix continued. “To keep us all safe. War only leads to more death, and if I can do anything to stop it, I will.”

Sylvain let that sit in the silence, watching Felix rub his socked feet together to get warm. It was a lot, and Felix must have felt a certain kind of upset to be so open with him. It’s a delicate thing that Sylvain’s been offered, something he knows not to take lightly.

Sylvain placed a hand on his shoulder, giving a gentle squeeze and watching Felix’s posture relax.

“Want to help me make fish stew?”

Felix did. They cooked together every night after, a welcomed normalcy Sylvain long missed, and his house started feeling like a home.

“Mind if I stay here tonight?” Ingrid asks, jolting Sylvain from his reminiscing. She’s glancing at the darkening sky out the window. “Jeralt doesn’t do well in storms.”

Sylvain gathers their dishes as he nods. “Of course. Want to help me get the stable ready for the big guy?”

“Like you’d do it right on your own.”

That night, after he finally finishes picking hay from his hair and clothes, Sylvain dreams of floating in a calm lake of fish stew. Felix is fishing on the pier, and Sylvain grabs at the line and pulls him in to join him. He watches Felix drop under the surface, bubbles rising from where he sunk.

Something deep below tugs at his ankle.

-

They get the news the next morning.

Felix and Ashe’s battalion was intercepted by Imperial soldiers. They had demonic beasts in tow. What was supposed to be a tidying up of a village turned into a massacre, scorched earth and skeletons of houses left behind. There were numerous fatalities, and no one knew where the surviving soldiers landed.

Sylvain tries not to be nervous. He knows Felix is more than capable of handling himself, but nothing in this war has gone the way he expected. No one anticipated Faerghus nobles to side with the Empire. No one planned for Dimitri to be captured so easily. No one foresaw the kingdom’s fall into ruins.

He’ll feel better when he sees him. He’ll give him hell for being an idiot, but he won’t stay mad for long. He just needs to see him.

Ingrid hasn’t left since they heard the news. She stays in the room across from Felix’s, helping Sylvain maintain the cabin until Felix and Ashe get back. It helps, having her around to wait it out. She keeps him from spiraling into anxiety, and he gives her chores and landscaping work to keep her busy instead of pacing.

“Just until they come back,” she says, face smudged with mud as they clean out the stables. “It should be in the next few days.”

The next few days stretch into a week.

Then two weeks.

Then three.

The fourth creeps in with a new blanket of snow and a heavy tension. The days are spent in silence, with Sylvain shoveling nonstop just to keep himself busy. He can’t sit inside anymore, not where Ingrid is brooding, polishing her lances and his axes until her palms turn red while she stares at walls.

There’s one night where he lets his weakness get the better of him, and he pushes into Felix’s room and buries himself under the many blankets he hoards. He hates himself for it, and he knows Felix will find out and give him that judging look, but he can’t deny it’s what he needs. He sleeps fitfully regardless, any warmth or smell long gone after weeks of absence.

He tries to remember it anyway, just to hold onto a part of him while he waits.

On the last day of the Ethereal Moon, he arrives.

Ashe.

Sylvain sees his light, feathery hair from the kitchen window, and he nearly throws himself over the table in his rush to the door.

“What? Are we being ambushed?” Ingrid jumps from her seat, grabbing at her lance. She always keeps it at an arm’s length nowadays.

“It’s Ashe!”

“Ashe?” Ingrid’s lance clatters to the ground, but Sylvain is already out the door.

He stumbles in the snow, it’s now up to his mid-thighs and thick, burning the muscles in his legs as he moves.

Ashe hasn’t come closer. He’s still standing at the mouth of the paved road, frozen in place.

Something’s wrong.

“Ashe!” Sylvain runs up to him, pulling his fur lined coat tighter around himself. “Ashe, you’re okay!”

Ashe doesn’t react, doesn’t speak. His green eyes flicker across his features, mouth in a tight line. Sylvain only notices now how thin is face is, how dark the skin under his eyes is.

“What’s wrong?” Ingrid asks, slowing to a stop next to Sylvain. “Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m okay now.”

“Where’s Felix?” Sylvain asks instead.

Ashe sucks in a deep breath through his nose. Then another. Then he’s nearly hyperventilating. Sylvain feels the panic rise to his throat.

“Ashe, where is he?”

“I don’t know.” Ashe’s voice wavers, frail and hoarse.

The cold encompasses him.

“You don’t know?”

Ashe’s eyes turn into sea glass, and the dam breaks. He starts sobbing, and Ingrid rushes to his side, pulling him into a hug.

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” she shushes.

Sylvain hasn’t moved. He stands completely still, staring at Ashe’s pathetic, crying face.

He doesn’t know.

“It was…it was a bloodbath. We were outnumbered and outmaneuvered. At one point he got cut off in another direction. There were a pack of Wyverns and Warlocks.”

Ashe keeps talking, his voice far away and distorted, like Sylvain’s head is underwater. The world is spinning.

“I tried to get over to him, but I was already wounded and we had to retreat.”

Felix didn’t come back with him.

“I made the battalion wait. I wasn’t going to leave without him, but, but a week passed and he never showed up, so we had to—”

“Sylvain?”

Sylvain walks away. He’s lost conscious control of his body, and it’s as if he’s watching himself walk to the gardens, to the the thin scattering of trees where he trains in the morning. The lake is visible from here, encased in ice and snow.

Sylvain blinks, and there he is.

A memory of him, from a month or two ago. He’s in a heavy coat, draped in Gautier blue, swinging his sword in measured strikes. The bark scars under his heavy hand. When he turns, his face is flushed from the cold, eyes wide and stark against his pale skin and the thick fur hood framing his face. The ghost of a smile crosses his mouth.

And then he’s gone.

Sylvain doesn’t remember grabbing an axe, or where it even came from. He grips it tightly, and swings it with everything he has.

It slices deep. A fatal wound.

_ “Care to join me, Sylvain?” _

“Sylvain!”

He can’t stop. He keeps swinging, over and over into the same tree. The bark gives, cracking and splitting under his blows.

_ “You’ll have to try harder. You’re getting sloppy.” _

“Stop it!”

He feels the force of his Crest pulse in his chest, surging through the muscles in his arms, and sees the flickers of light dance around his hands when he swings.

_ “I can’t be the one protecting the both of us.” _

The iron axe snaps off its handle, spinning away as the wood splinters in his grip. He’s bleeding furiously from his palms, but he feels nothing but the hot pulse of agony.

His hands can’t stop vibrating.

His voice is a chorus of whimpers.

He can’t feel his own heartbeat, fluttering so quickly he grows numb to it.

“Sylvain!”

Ingrid arms cross around his abdomen, and he feels her forehead press against his back. Her hands rise and fall above his heaving chest, and he sways forward, forehead colliding with the tree. He sees every single mark he left on the bark, crisscrossing with the ghost of Felix’s sword.

_ “That doesn’t mean I won’t try.” _

He presses his bloody hands to the bark and howls.

**Guardian Moon**

The new moon brings a storm.

Every winter, Faerghus conjures up one or two intense blizzards, feet of snow draping the Kingdom in a stinging white blanket. Faerghus legends say that these storms are gifts from the Goddess, giving the people of her land time to rest and be with loved ones without distraction. It’s a time to be thankful for the family they have to spend time with, to huddle together for warmth.

Sylvain is molten with fury.

A violent vortex of pain ebbs and flows under Sylvain’s skin. His jaw aches with the grind of his teeth, and he wakes up every day tense and coiled. He doesn’t speak for weeks. He forgets how to say anything that isn’t a scream. He knows Ingrid doesn’t leave, but he doesn’t know what she does. He’s lost all sense of time and context, spiraling further and further down.

The snow falls back, but doesn’t melt. It hardens into ice, circling Gautier territory from all angles.

He’s surrounded, trapped, with nothing to do but burn.

-

If the professor were here, she would have forced Sylvain to join Felix.

The professor always knew to pair them off in battles. Sylvain’s heavy armor defenses were a perfect shield to Felix’s rash movements and strikes. They were an unstoppable force on missions, often sent alone to clear the path ahead for the others to follow.

If the professor were here, he would scream at her until his face turns red. If she were here, none of this would be happening. He wouldn’t have to face his friends in battle. Dimitri and Dedue would be hiding away with them, instead of locked away for dead. Felix would be here, where he belongs, sleeping in his guest room under four quilts because he gets so cold and cranky.

But she isn’t. She left them. Abandoned them, when they needed her guiding hand the most. He should have known she would eventually. Mercenaries run alone, and they never stay for long.

Sylvain mourns her. Only for a moment.

Raging at a ghost gives him no satisfaction.

-

Rodrigue arrives on the seventh week.

He and his men are draped in black, and it’s so eerily familiar to Glenn’s procession that Ingrid takes Jeralt and flies away at the sight. Sylvain doesn’t blame her, and he’s glad she’s gone. He has a feeling this visit won’t leave him feeling proud, and the last thing he needs is his only friend turning away with disgust.

Sylvain waits at the door, arms crossed and expression stony as Rodrigue climbs the steps. His men stay behind, loitering on the front lawn.

“Sylvain,” Rodrigue greets, holding out a gloved palm.

Sylvain says nothing as he shakes his hand. Rodrigue’s face is all wrong, all sharp angles and dark shadows. His wiry goatee is getting away from him, patchy in places. He looks like shit, frankly. Sylvain doesn’t know what his own face looks like. He hasn’t stopped to see his reflection in so long.

Sylvain invites him inside, despite his better judgment. They settle in the kitchen, sitting opposite each other with a pot of tea steaming between them on the table. Sylvain doesn’t drink. He watches Rodrigue look around, hold his mug, sip like his children aren’t dead.

“How are your parents?”

“Fine,” Sylvain answers.

“Holding down the front lines, aren’t they?” Rodrigue nods. “They’ve been doing good work. You must be proud.”

He isn’t. He hasn’t been proud to be a Gautier in years. Not since he realized his life was effectively ruined by his name, his Crest, his blood.

Rodrigue drinks awkwardly, to fill the silence. Sylvain’s waiting for the bomb to drop, for him to tell him why he’s here when he should be doing a thousand different things.

“I understand Felix was staying here,” Rodrigue says carefully. “I came to retrieve his things.”

“No can do.”

“Oh.” Rodrigue blinks at him, oblivious to the anger simmering beneath his skin. “Did he take his things with him?”

“No. They’re here.” Sylvain takes a sip of tea. “You just can’t have them.”

“Sylvain.” Rodrigue’s eye challenge him.

“He was a guest at my estate, and I won’t have someone stealing things that don’t belong to them.”

“This isn’t the time for formalities. I came for my son’s belongings, and I’ll leave with them.”

“No,” Sylvain repeats. “You won’t.”

Rodrigue slams his fist on the table, rising to his feet. Sylvain doesn’t react, just takes a sip of Almyran Pine tea. Felix brought three boxes of it with him that night.

“This isn’t a discussion!” He snaps. “Who are you to hold his memory hostage? Like you have any right to—”

“Have you cried, Rodrigue?”

“What?”

Sylvain catches a bead of tea against his thumb before it hits the table. It burns.

“Have you thought about all the things you would have said to him? If you had one more chance?” Sylvain asks, and Rodrigue’s eyes widen further. “I can’t stop. I don’t sleep because it’s all I think about.”

Rodrigue doesn’t say anything, so Sylvain carries on despite his best judgment.

“I would have paid more attention when he spoke, especially when he was angry. Because that meant he had something to tell me that he couldn’t say normally.”

“Sylvain.” Rodrigue sounds pained. Good.

“I would have let him train me to be stronger, to bear pain more easily. Maybe then I would have been there with him. I could have protected him. Saved him.” Sylvain takes an unsteady breath. “His life was worth more than mine.”

It’s the truth. Promise be damned. Sylvain would fall on a sword right at this moment if it meant Felix would stumble through the door. He wouldn’t even hesitate.

The silence after feels eternal, never ending. Sylvain nearly forgets where he is, what he’s feeling, what it is he’s supposed to feel. Relief that he’s finally spoken? No. Nothing in his chest or mind eases. It coils tighter, inward, around his heart and refusing to relent.

He’s made it real, to speak like this. This is real.

“Sylvain.” Rodrigue places a hand on top of his, and Sylvain sees his age for the first time in his lines beneath his eyes. “There are things we can’t change, but there are things we can take comfort in—”

Sylvain shoots up, sending his chair flying. He grabs Rodrigue by the collar, and his anger is blinding him as he shoves him against the wall. The windows rattle behind him.

“If you even think of saying he died a hero I’ll kill you,” he sneers, seeing red, red,  _ red _ . “I’ll wipe your line from this earth and feel  _ nothing _ ."

Sylvain watches Rodrigue’s expression, the undeserved fury, and he feels the faint press of a blade against the back of his neck. Good. Let them slit his throat and end him here. Let the entire kingdom collapse in infighting.

Sylvain doesn’t care anymore.

Let the war destroy them like they deserve.

There’s a shuffling outside the window, and Sylvain hears Jeralt’s faint cries. He releases Rodrigue’s collar on instinct.

“I have nothing more to say to you, Rodrigue. Leave.”

“You can’t—”

“Leave.”

Sylvain follows Rodrigue out, just to make sure he doesn’t try to grab Felix’s things and run. When he opens the front door, they find Ingrid sitting on the top step. She holds Luin in her hand, and her head is bowed.

“Rodrigue.”

“Ingrid.” Rodrigue nods.

“Go home, Rodrigue.”

Rodrigue startles at the harshness of her voice, but Ingrid’s eyes are stormy, and looking away.

“Mourn your children.”

Ingrid’s hands are trembling. Sylvain can see the waver in Luin’s posture. Rodrigue must be too shaken to notice, because he leaves without another word.

They watch the Fraldarius battalion leave in silence, waiting until they’re black dots on the horizon. Sylvain releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He has a feeling he won’t be back again, and the sharp realization he won’t see another Fraldarius in his lifetime cuts him unexpectedly.

They’re gone. Just like that. One by one, as good as dead.

Ingrid rises, bringing Luin down on the wood panels with a crack. She turns to look at Sylvain, the storm in her eyes still present.

“Fight me.”

Sylvain recoils like she slapped him.“Ingrid—”

“Fight me, Sylvain.” She adjusts her stance, lance pointed his chest. “Here and now.”

Sylvain looks into her eyes, trying to find any reason he shouldn’t take her up on this. He sees pain. So much pain and suffering. It’s clouded in green that will never quite shine like they used to. Not after the things they’ve had to witness and remember.

“Fine.”

Sylvain deems it appropriate to retrieve the Lance of Ruin, if Ingrid went out of her way to bring Luin. Let this be a true battle of Relics, and maybe, if they’re lucky, they’ll both break.

He finds Ingrid in the backyard, standing among the bare trees. She stares at the wounded trunk Sylvain left behind, bloodied and gouged. When she turns to look at him, he catches the shine of tears before they narrow at him. Like a huntress.

“Alright?”

“Alright.”

She’s vicious, a warrior in her style and approach. But it’s more than pure skill. Ingrid knows him, truly knows him. She knows how he tends to lean favorably to his left, leaving his right side open to attack. She knows his ankles are weak, and swipes at them to keep him stumbling.

She knows he’s raging, boiling from the inside out with a white hot flame that makes him sloppy. Unhinged. Violent. Like one more slip and he’ll hurt her.

Ingrid doesn’t look the least bit afraid of him.

“You need to pull yourself together, Sylvain,” she snaps when she’s able to graze his chest.

He brings the lance down in return, cracking it against her own. The force reverberates between them. Two Heroes Relics clashing in the bristle of a Faerghus winter’s unforgiving hand.

Be thankful. It’s a gift. From the Goddess.

_ Bullshit _ .

Sylvain doesn’t speak. He can’t speak. He’s afraid of the venom that will drip from his mouth. He doesn’t trust himself not to break. Ingrid or himself, he isn’t sure. His hands tremble on the staff, shaking under the pressure coming from outside and within.

“Shut up!” he growls, shoving her away.

“There’s nothing you could have done, Sylvain.”

“He would have done something for me!” he insists with a roar, slicing the lance through the air.

He cuts across, but she intercepts him, kicking at his bad ankle. He cries out, falling, and Ingrid elbows his stomach on the way down. Winds him. Ends him.

For a moment, he just breathes, looking down at the snow. It glows with the light of Luin so close to his face. Ingrid points the lance down at him, at his throat, and Sylvain feels the ground fall out beneath him because he  _ remembers _ this. He remembers being at the Academy, locked in the training room, on his knees with Felix towering over him, for once. His sword was pointed at his throat, too, and in the moment, Sylvain thought he would slice his skin open.

It was before they properly reconnected. They were doing the weird dance of reconciling the clingy childhood best friends they once were to the jarring caricatures they crafted for themselves as adults. Sparring seemed to be the only thing that could bring them together, although more often than not it ended like this, with Sylvain pressed under Felix’s thumb.

“Well?” Sylvain had asked, trying to lighten the mood with a sloppy grin. “Want to put me out of my misery?”

Felix’s face had fallen, ever slightly.

“No,” he said, lowering his sword. “Why would you think I would?”

“Uh, every interaction we’ve had in the last month? Since you decided you hated me?” Sylvain said, and he was annoyed at Felix obliviousness. Like he hadn’t been confused or upset about their complete lack of a connection since arriving at Garreg Mach. It tore him up inside.

Felix’s shoulders fell, and so did his sword. Completely.

“I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“I said I’m sorry,” Felix repeated. “And I don’t hate you. I’d never hate you.”

“Wow.” Sylvain said, blinking just to have something to do. “What, I mean, why? You should.”

“We made a promise, remember?”

Sylvain gaped up at him. Felix turned away, his face warm with a mixture of embarrassment and sincerity that were completely foreign to his features.

“I didn’t realize that one counted.”

“It’s the one that counts the most,” Felix said, surprising him with the gentle look in his eyes. “It’s the one that’s never changed.”

Felix held his hand out, and the smile he gave Sylvain melted his skin.

“Get up.”

The snow beneath his knees soaks his clothing, and his bones ache with all the wounds he’s tried to hide. Ingrid is unflinching, and he realizes that Luin would kill him if he moved a certain way. It would end this. The anger. The burning. The pain.

Sylvain can’t help but give in.

He sways forward. The pointed tip grazes his throat.

Ingrid gasps, jerking away and stumbling backwards into the bark. His own bloody hand prints frame her head like a halo, and he can’t stop the sob that cuts through his teeth.

“I promised him.” Sylvain weeps. “I promised him he wouldn’t die before me.”

Ingrid is crying. He can hear her sniffling.

“I should have been with him, Ingrid. He shouldn’t have been alone. I should have died. It should have been me.”

With Ingrid’s arms around him, he feels the fight leave his body. It seeps out of him in a rush, boiling over into steam as the world ends again.

**Pegasus Moon**

The third moon brings the nightmares.

They come all of a sudden, with no warning or way for Sylvain to steel himself. The snow on the lawn has softened, and Sylvain’s been taking long walks around the lake. He spends hours outside, dragging an axe behind him and taking a heavy whack against the trees when the mood strikes. He isn’t positive it’s healthy, but it keeps him moving, and the wind that strikes his skin makes him feel something other than the numbness blossoming in his chest. He accepts it, because anything is better than the chill in his lungs.

It’s therapy. It’s routine. It keeps his feet on the ground.

That’s when the nightmares start. Each one is the same.

Felix is all of six years old, tugging at his shirt and weeping uncontrollably. His hair hangs in his face, sticking to the tears that streak against his pale skin.

“I’m scared, Sylvain. I’m scared,” he whines, in a voice Sylvain can’t believe once belonged to him. “I want to go home. Can we go home?”

Sylvain can’t move. He’s frozen, arms bound to his side, and every part of him is screaming to move, to pat his head like he used to, to tell him he’s okay, and he’ll keep him safe no matter what. But he remains still, and Felix wheezes against him the longer he stays quiet.

“Sylvain,  _ please _ !”

Then the tears turn into blood.

Felix’s small hands start shaking, and he swipes at his face, clawing, screeching.

“What’s happening to me?” he cries, hiccuping as his breathing becomes clipped, forced. “Stop it! Sylvain, make it stop!”

Sylvain doesn’t.

Then the blood turns to liquid amber, and Felix starts screaming, the color draining from his eyes and leaving his irises white, black pupils pooling.

That’s when Felix stops breathing.

His arms fall limp against his sides, and he’s his true age, the adult he is now. He sways lifelessly, eyes drained and empty. Dead on his feet.

“I’m scared.”

Sylvain opens his eyes slowly.

It’s been a month of these nightmares. He’s gotten better at waking up from them. The first week he cried out every time, Ingrid bursting in with a lance and barely awake. She’d hold him until he fell back asleep, mind empty and dreamless.

He turns on his side, looking down at her.

Ingrid is curled up on a pile of blankets, asleep on the floor. She said it was easier this way, that she couldn’t sleep either, and he’s long past letting the guilt eat him alive. She keeps Luin between them and the door, just in case. In case of what, Sylvain isn’t sure. They’re far enough from any threats from Sreng or the Empire that they can sleep soundly.

That’s just how Ingrid is. Prepared at all times for the call of battle.

He can’t stand to be around it.

Sylvain rolls out of bed, tiptoeing around Ingrid’s sleeping form and the glowing haze of Luin. The dark hallways break down the walls he’s built in his mind, and each step on the staircase asks a question.

Was he afraid?

How long was he in pain?

Did he cry out for him?

Was there another way?

Sylvain kicks a chair at the bottom of the staircase, sending it flying against the wall. His ankle twinges, but he remains standing. It’s infuriating, how he lost everything in one morning, with a sleepy roll of his ankle in the early sunlight.

Felix, sitting in the window, holding a cup of tea close, silhouetted against the snow. Hair flowing down his back, shirt slipping on his shoulder, eyes soft and without worry for once.

It sent him falling. So hard. So  _ fast _ .

Down the fucking stairs.

Stupid. He’s so  _ useless _ . Sidelined because of a sprained muscle. Letting the most important person in his life go because of a dumb injury.

Letting his heart destroy him in the end.

It’s only when Ingrid wakes up that he realizes it’s Felix’s birthday.

He’d give his heart away to have him back.

-

Sylvain remembers random things at random times. Memories, moments from different points in his life. Times when Felix was there, and times when he wasn’t, but on Sylvain’s mind anyway.

He remembers the month before the war with perfect clarity.

Edelgard’s unmasking. The Empire’s declaration. The overnight evacuations. Their home becoming a war zone.

Mercedes, in a moment of motherly panic, insisting on teaching the Blue Lions a basic healing spell.

“Just in case,” she had rushed out, gathering them in a circle while the professor had a strategy meeting with Rhea. Mercedes’ eyes were glassy, and Sylvain didn’t know what he could say to make her feel better. “Just in case.”

Felix had skipped, much to Ingrid’s infuriation. It had erupted into a screaming match between the lot of them. Ingrid’s anger at Felix. Sylvain rushing to calm her down. Annette crying because she was so afraid. Ashe yelling at them to stop yelling. And Dimitri standing in the corner, arms crossed, gaze to the floor, laughing.

It terrified them.

Sylvain stormed out soon enough to find Felix. He couldn’t listen to the madness any longer, and he wasn’t doing anyone any good by sticking around.

He went to the training grounds, and sure enough, Felix was standing there alone.

“Hey.”

Felix didn’t turn around, so Sylvain watched the tense rise and fall of his shoulders. He wasn’t training. He wasn’t doing anything. That was even more infuriating to realize.

“You have some fucking nerve bailing on us like that, Felix. You’re lucky I’m coming to get you and not Ingrid. She’s ready to kill you.”

Felix ignored him, and Sylvain snapped.

“Felix!” Sylvain ground out, grabbing his bicep and pulling him close.

Felix was crying.

Crying was the wrong word. He was standing still, tears falling down his face, with the most intense expression Sylvain had ever seen.

“Leave me alone,” he said, not looking at him.

“Fuck that.” Sylvain tightened his grip. Felix looked up at him, eyes narrowed and red.

“I told you,” Felix hissed, eyes still leaking. “I said this entire time that he’d become this.”

“It doesn’t matter, Felix! What matters is the fucking army marching to us right now.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Felix ripped his arm away. “You think that boar is going to protect us? You’re a fucking fool.”

Felix kicked his own sword away, the clang echoing around him as he seethed.

“He’s going to kill, and kill more, and even if he kills her, he won’t stop because he loves it too much. You think he’ll remember that we’re friends? Classmates? Fuck that.” Felix shoved at Sylvain’s chest. “Someone has to protect us when he points his lance at us. Someone has to!”

Sylvain was  _ exhausted _ . Tired of everyone’s shit. Tired of all of this.

He grabbed Felix by his shoulders, pulling him close.

“You want to know the best way to protect us? Learn a basic healing spell, you fucking shitbag.”

Felix tried to pull away, but Sylvain grabbed his face instead, forcing him to look at him.

“What are you going to do if I’m bleeding out next to you, Felix? You think your sword can stitch a wound? You’re going to let me die just because you skipped class once?”

Felix’s mouth had dropped open, staring up at him with wide eyes.

“Would you let me die, Felix?” Sylvain repeated. “Over something like this?”

“No,” Felix said, out of breath. “No, I won’t. I’ll never—”

“Then please,” Sylvain begged, knocking his forehead against Felix’s. “Please, just let me show you.”

Felix stared into his eyes, irises flicking around frantically, nowhere to turn and no way to look away. It was the closest they’d been since they were children, hiding away together in a coat closet in a game of hide and seek. They weren’t supposed to be hiding together, but they didn’t like straying into the dark spaces alone. Sylvain clutched Felix’s small hands in his, noses pressed together as they listened to footsteps run up and down the hall. Felix giggled, and Sylvain slapped a hand against his mouth.

“They’ll find us, Fe!” he hissed, unable to hide his matching laugh.

Felix continued giggling, staring up at Sylvain with eyes scrunched by laugh lines. He licked a fat stripe against his palm, sending Sylvain screeching and falling out of the closet.

The low lights of the training grounds caught the fading laugh lines around Felix’s eyes, and Sylvain yearned for that time, when they were hiding for fun and not for their lives.

“Okay,” Felix whispered, breath hitting Sylvain’s face.

They stayed until it was dark, practicing  _ heal _ over and over. Sylvain would slice his fingertip, and Felix would hold his hand close, brow furrowed, eyes down until his weak white magic turned his skin whole again. Sylvain still has a scar where he cut his finger so many times.

Sylvain should have pushed him harder. He should have drilled him until he could cast something more powerful. Something that would save his life.

No, that wasn’t quite it. He should have prepared the right person.

He thinks of what he said to Rodrigue, weeks ago. It hits him in a rush, the weight in his chest, the guilt tearing him inside out. The reason he taught himself  _ physic _ and  _ fortify _ in secret. He always expected to be there when Felix needed him to be. Ready to heal him with his last breath, so Felix could push on and fight until the end of time.

Because Sylvain had long accepted he would die first.

**Lone Moon**

The fourth month brings sunlight, weak and peeking through the clouds in dull bursts. The snow has nearly melted, and the dead grass beneath it starts to unfurl into something green.

People come and go, now that the weather has cleared. Mercedes and Annette spend a weekend filling his stomach and trying to make him laugh. Ashe returns, mostly to regale reports and read to them when the sun goes down. His parents even stopped by for an afternoon. Sylvain doesn’t remember their visit, blocking out his father’s voice after he catches him lamenting the end of the Fraldarius line.

Each visit reminds him of the loneliness. The kind he feels drawing closer, ready to swoop in the second he’s left truly by himself. It’s only a matter of time before Ingrid has to leave, and then once she does the reality of his new life will settle.

He’s alone.

It’s true that, in theory, he still has Ingrid. He’s always had Ingrid, the same amount of time he had Felix, but it isn’t the same. Ingrid is his best friend, but there’s a degree of separation between the two of them that he knows will never close. He knows what she sees when she looks at him. A careless, lazy womanizer. He’s her friend, nonetheless, but she’s made her thoughts on his behavior clear. She never questioned it, just demanded he changed.

Felix never saw those things. He saw right through him, in every stage of their life together. Even at his lowest, in the Officers Academy, striking up and striking out with every girl that would give him attention.

“Why do you do this to yourself?” Felix asked one morning at breakfast, after some girl slapped Sylvain in the face and walked away.

“Do what?” Sylvain rubbed his cheek and pressed his cold goblet against the stinging skin.

“I’m not an idiot. You don’t really want any of those women.”

He felt his face heat up, like he’d been caught doing something he’d been hiding.

“What are you talking about?”

Felix looked up at him and dropped his fork. He leaned in, arms folded on the table.

“Your smile doesn’t reach your eyes when you talk to them, or flirt with them, or do whatever you do with them,” Felix said.

Sylvain scoffed, stabbing at his eggs angrily.

“You’re full of shit, Felix,” he snapped. “Stop looking for things that aren’t there.”

Felix narrowed his eyes. Sylvain never snapped at him, and he half expected it to turn into a full on fight.

It didn’t. Felix’s expression softened, and Sylvain’s cold exterior melted.

“You don’t think I know you?”

Sylvain knew he did. It struck him through the heart, the way Felix knew him, looked at him. Not with pity or anger or frustration, like so many people around him tend to do. It was an openly earnest gaze, searching for the boy he had known, before things became so complicated, so adult. Felix wanted him to be better not because he was some annoying burden, but because he knew he could be. Even underneath the deep, ugly, angry parts of Sylvain that hated himself inside and out, Felix saw  _ him _ . He watched him self-destruct and bloom over and over again, pulling him back up every time and challenging him to grow.

Sylvain never had anyone like Felix. He never trusted anyone the way he trusted Felix. He never wanted anyone else in Felix’s place, by his side, in his space.

And now that space is empty.

Sylvain’s never felt so alone.

-

It’s sunset. The day before Felix rides away.

They spent the morning lazing around, with Felix indulging Sylvain in one of his tactics games. Sylvain threw his entire all into it, spending minutes at a time strategizing and predicting. Felix grabbed a piece and moved it without thought, and rolled his eyes when Sylvain would gasp at his carelessness. It ended with Felix cheating, of course. He has no patience for made up rules, and the rules said nothing about Felix ‘accidentally’ swiping half of Sylvain’s pieces off the board. He said his soldiers fell into a canyon. Sylvain said he was just hungry and cranky. They were both right.

“Are you going to be okay?” Sylvain asks late in the afternoon. They’re outside, enjoying a winter day in the sunlight. He’s soaked, cold from Felix pushing him into a snowbank, and his sides still ache from laughter he hasn’t enjoyed since his childhood.

Felix wipes his blade on the hem of his coat, looking up at him with a raised eyebrow. He has his hair half down, for some reason. Maybe it fell out when they were rolling in the snow. Maybe he feels comfortable enough to let it hang free.

“Are you?”

“Am I what?”

Felix rolls his eyes, dropping his arm and letting his sword graze the snow beneath their feet.

“Are you going to be okay?”

“Eh, I’ll be fine. It’s going to be weird without you here,” Sylvain comments. “Quiet.”

“You’re not planning on relocating while I’m gone, are you?”

“Nah.” Sylvain kicks out his bad ankle. “Not until she’s ready to go.”

“Your left ankle’s a woman?”

“Her name is Gertrude.”

“Unbelievable.” Felix sighs, but Sylvain can see him smirking.

“Why do you think I’d leave?”

Felix shrugs. “Boredom.”

“It’s not so bad with company. And you’ll be back soon enough anyway.”

Sylvain doesn’t miss the release of tension from Felix’s shoulders. He turns away with a smile.

“Good. I don’t like not knowing where you are.”

“Is that why you showed up on my doorstep?” Sylvain teases.

“Yes.”

Sylvain whips around to look at him. Felix is still looking at the sunset, eyes glowing with the dying rays of sunlight.

“Really.”

Felix sighs, shrugging, and Sylvain lets it go. He knows better than to push Felix too far. The last few months have been a breath of fresh air. No spats, no tension. Just the two of them, side by side, day by day. He can almost see an entire future like this, if fate falls their way and gives them a life outside of bloodshed.

“You’re like that with all of our friends.” Sylvain jokes, trying to ease the tightness in his chest. It’s been a pressing force as of late, catching his breath and hiding it away every time Felix smiles or teases or knocks him off his feet with sincerity.

“No, not really. They wouldn’t even expect me to be.”

“That’s not true. You love our friends, and you’d run across the Valley of Torment to save any of them.”

Sylvain’s expecting Felix to say something snarky, so stereotypically  _ Felix _ in his lone wolf attitude. So he’s caught off guard when he raises his hands in surrender.

“Fine, you got me. I’m a softie. Go and tell all of Fodlan. Maybe it’ll melt Edelgard’s heart and this war will be over.”

It takes him aback to see Felix admit it. To acknowledge that the swelling, sensitive heart that cried it’s way through his childhood is still inside him, still beating and loving as strongly as it did so long ago.

“You know they’d all do the same for you, right?” Sylvain asks, because he’s suddenly unsure if Felix knows just how important he is to them. To him.

Felix shrugs. “I know that I’ll do anything and everything to keep all of us safe, but I also know that it’s not reciprocated. And that’s fine. People do what they need to do to survive. I’m at peace with it.”

“I think you’re underestimating them.”

“I know I’m not,” Felix assures. “And it’s fine. Really, Sylvain. It’s fine.”

They’re silent for a moment, and Sylvain takes in every detail of his face. The sharp lines that carve his profile. The narrowness of his dark eyes. The way his hair falls over his cheekbones, and the quick flick of his wrist and long fingers when he brushes the strands away. He’s a sight that’s so familiar, so integral to Sylvain’s entire existence that he can no longer remember a time where he didn’t know every swaying line of his silhouette. Every syllable in his name. The way they complement each other perfectly, in ways that people spent their entire lives searching for. Yearning for.

“I’d do anything to keep you safe,” Sylvain says, and he feels like he’s giving away something he shouldn’t. Not now, at least. Not in a war, where everything is so uncertain, and vows are better known as risks. “I would, Felix. I promise.”

Felix smiles, and looks over at him. Sylvain doesn’t know what’s happening, but this feels important, like something he’s supposed to remember for a long time.

“I know you will. That’s what I meant this whole time, idiot.”

Sylvain isn’t sure what he means by that, but he feels the kindness in his words. The bare fondness he’s sharing with Sylvain makes him feel otherworldly. He can’t think of a single place he’d rather be, bones chilled with only Felix’s words to wash heat into him.

“Sylvain?”

Felix is looking at him, head tilted up because Sylvain just keeps growing. Sylvain didn’t realize they were close enough for Felix to have to look up at him.

“Felix?”

“We’re going to make it through this,” Felix tells him, confident in a way only he could be. “We’re going to survive, and when the war’s over…”

He trails off, like he’s forgotten what he was supposed to say. Or he doesn’t want to say it. It leaves Sylvain breathless.

“Keep going.”

“No, never mind,” Felix says, shaking his head, and Sylvain wants to pry his mouth open and pull whatever he was going to tell him straight from his heart.

“Will you tell me when you come home?”

He meant here. Sylvain’s house. The two of them under one roof, huddled up against a storm. It had fallen from his lips without a question.

Home.

He meant it.

Sylvain watches Felix carefully, the hurricane of emotions storming his face. Confusion. Understanding. Overwhelm. He also sees the moment it settles into acceptance, a small happiness that brightens his eyes and tugs at the corners of his mouth.

“Maybe.” Felix smiles, turning away, and his cheeks are bitten pink by the cold. “Yeah, maybe. When I come home.”

They remained silent for the rest of the night, and said only a hushed goodnight before they retired to their own rooms, with the promise of something for later.

It was the last conversation they had. The last words Sylvain remembers in Felix’s voice.

_ When I come home. _

“He had feelings for me.”

Sylvain hears something clang, then clatter. His eyes remain on the faded blue carpet under his socked feet, shadows from the fireplace licking at his ankles.

“He did, didn’t he?” Sylvain repeats. “That’s what he was trying to tell me, all this time.”

He looks up, and Ingrid is pale, eyes wide like she’s been caught.

“That isn’t my business to say,” Ingrid tells him, and it may as well be confirmation.

Sylvain lets it wash over him. Felix had feelings for him. Real feelings. Not for his wealth. Not for his title. For him.

It’s a confession from a corpse.

“He was everything to me,” Sylvain whispers. He doesn’t cry, like the Goddess took pity and finally drained him dry. “He was my entire fucking world.”

Ingrid rises and wanders over, cautious, like she’s approaching a wild beast. He doesn’t blame her, after all she’s seen of him. The ugly anger that has finally been lanced and buried with any hope he had for his own future. It’s gone now.

“I never told him.”

Ingrid takes his hand.

“He knew, Sylvain. I’m sure he did.”

Ingrid puts a hand on his cheek, then brushes away the last tear Sylvain can manage, and he feels his heart fall away with it.

“He knows now.”

-

Ingrid is called home the next week to defend Galatea territory from Alliance infighting. She initially plans to abstain, and Sylvain knows it’s because she’s afraid to leave him alone.

“You have to go.”

Ingrid tries to argue, but Sylvain won’t hear it.

“Go. Your family needs you.”

Ingrid sucks in a hard breath, reaching blindly for his hand. The tea between them has gone cold, the letter sucking all the heat from the room.

“Are you going to be okay?” she asks, one of his hands hanging loose in hers.

“I don’t know,” Sylvain admits. “You should go anyway.”

Ingrid does. She leaves the next morning, because she can never say no to her father. Sylvain watches her fly off, standing on his doorstep, trying to ignore the chill of the empty house behind him.

He doesn’t wait for night to fall to go to sleep. The stairs creak under his feet, and the echo bounces off the walls. The door to Felix’s room stands before him, as fearsome as a demonic beast, and no less impenetrable.

He opens the door anyway.

The room is as he left it months ago, before Ashe ended his world. Sylvain sits on the bed, taking in the mess of Felix’s things, strewn about in a way that should make him itchy, if he were any bit himself. Spare clothing. Rusted weapons. Hair ties. The belongings that Rodrigue so desperately wanted were just pieces of a person. Things that were so inconsequential to the man they belonged to. He still left them with Sylvain. He believed he was coming back to them. To his home. To Sylvain.

He isn’t coming home.

Felix is dead.

“I loved you.”

A confession to a corpse. A bell ringing in an empty church. Words spoken to someone too far away to hear them.

It doesn’t make it any less true.

He loved him.

What was left of him now?

When Sylvain falls asleep in Felix’s bed, he doesn’t dream. He feels the weight of a hand on his chest, a familiar breath in his ear, a smile against his cheek.

_ “Care to join me, Sylvain?" _

**Great Tree Moon**

Spring in Faerghus always put Sylvain’s soul at ease.

The winters were horrible, and spent trapped in his house with parents who worshiped him and a brother who went out of his way to hurt him. He hated the way his paling skin showed the bruises so easily. His father turned a blind eye to them. His mother saw every one, but kept her mouth shut out of fear. Miklan bragged about them to the staff. Sylvain watched it all happen and felt nothing towards his family. He learned the Kingdom legends of the Goddess’s gifts were lies a long time ago.

When the first ray of light broke through the clouds, Sylvain would steal a horse and ride away. He’d ride until he stumbled into Fraldarius territory, into the gardens where he knew Felix liked to hide. Felix would pop up from his favorite bush, and run to meet him halfway. They’d tear up the budding flowers and peel them open, smelling the first breaths of spring together.

Springtime now is bittersweet.

Spring means a renewed fighting spirit, both armies rising from the cold to continue their war under a bloody sun. Springtime births new life that would soon be struck down once more, and he wonders if his childhood self would soon realize that his bruises would never fade. They’d just bloom in secret.

Sylvain looks down, surrounded by the trees they would spar against, taller, broader, emptier. Between his heavy armored boots, an orange poppy stands at attention. He can’t remember the last time flowers grew here, in this spot, where the ground was torn up so frequently that the weeds even turned elsewhere. The trees have started to turn green, though, small leaves rustling as the wind brushes by. Even the one Sylvain massacred four months ago started to bloom again, the blood now faded into a pale pink against the light bark.

Sylvain takes it all in. The familiarity of his home. The lake where he learned to swim after Miklan threw him in too many times. The cold, stinging air of Gautier territory. One last time.

He’ll leave in the morning for Fhirdiad. He’ll join the resistance against Edelgard’s forces, opting to run to the front lines, where the battles have turned ugly. And if he brings his weakest armor, the chest plate that he never got around to fully repairing after the battle of Garreg Mach, then it will be an unfortunate accident.

Felix is gone. But he won’t be far behind.

Heavy footsteps rattle him front his thoughts. The poppy slips through his fingers as he turns.

There’s a dark silhouette looming behind him. A man. He’s wild, caked in dirt and bloodstained clothing. His dark hair is chopped short, pieces flip around wildly into his face, greasy and dark against his familiar, amber eyes.

Sylvain never understood Dimitri’s rambling about ghosts, but he thinks it’s cruel they decided to make an appearance now, like they know he’s about to join them.

It’s crueler that they’d send him.

“Felix,” he says, like it’ll make this tortured soul leave him alone.

Felix’s ghost doesn’t say anything, just breathes heavily, wildly. Like he’s struggling to find enough air to keep him standing. He walks closer, staggering, like he’s limping or dragging. Sylvain doesn’t move, even when he gets within an arm’s reach away. Sylvain stares back, unflinching. What does he have left to fear?

“Sylvain,” the ghost croaks, voice shredded into wisps of hot air, and Sylvain feels it hit his face. Strange.

Sylvain reaches out, to push this ghost away and leave him be, but his unsteady hand collides with his chest. Solid. Breathing.

Alive.

“Felix?!”

Felix crumbles, immediately, as soon as his name leaves his mouth. He collapses into Sylvain’s chest, wailing, like a child. Like the nightmares Sylvain’s fought off for months.

This is real.

This is his Felix, alive and screaming and tearing into his coat as he digs his claws in and falls.

Sylvain follows him down, catches him, head spinning and heart racing.

“Felix! Felix? Felix?” He can’t stop saying his name, tugging at his clothes and touching his skin. He can’t even get a firm grasp on his hair, it’s so short now.

Felix sputters, grunting, trying to make words or sounds or anything that isn’t pure anguish, but Sylvain pulls him close, pressing his face to the crown of his head.

“You’re okay, fuck, you’re safe, Felix,” Sylvain rushes out, and he’s crying, too. He can barely breathe as he takes him in, as disgusting as Felix is right now. He’s alive. He’s here.

“You’re home.”

All he can do is hold him, like an iron cage, as he falls apart in ruins.

-

Felix sleeps under five quilts.

He’s still, so terrifyingly still as he rests for a day. Sylvain sits by the bed, at the ready with food or water or whatever magic he can hit him with to ease his panic and lull him back to sleep. Getting him inside was a struggle. He was so unbelievably frail, and his balance was thrown terribly and making him bump and trip into everything. He had clung to Sylvain the entire time, his white knuckle grip on Sylvain’s arms the only strength he had left in him.

Sylvain eventually picked him up, and it made his stomach lurch when he realized he  _ could _ . Felix was so thin, and was speaking nonsense while he carried him up the stairs.

“You died, too?” he asked, and Sylvain’s heart ached.

“No, I’m not dead.”

“Then why are you with me?”

“You’re alive, Felix. We’re both alive.” Sylvain set him down on his bed, and he felt Felix’s arms around his back, pulling him close.

“Don’t leave me,” Felix begged.

“I’m never leaving.”

Sylvain runs his thumb across Felix’s cheekbone. His palm is numb, crushed under Felix’s cheek. When Felix has bursts of energy he thrashes around, grabbing for Sylvain and not letting go until he falls unconscious again. He’s curled onto his side right now, tight and arms knotted against himself, fingers curled around Sylvain’s wrist. He’s been like this for hours. Sylvain doesn’t mind. He wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

He hasn’t sent a message out to Ingrid, or Rodrigue, or anyone. He was too afraid to leave the room, like if he took his eyes off Felix for a moment he’d disappear again, leaving only footprints in the mud. He’s not letting him leave. He’s not letting him out of his sight.

Felix whimpers, curling in tighter, and Sylvain aches for him, for everything Felix must have lost in the last four months. He barely recognizes him, between his sickly skin and thin face. His  _ hair _ . He knows it’s superficial, but it’s like Felix’s long hair was a part of him, ever since they were kids and he wanted to look like Glenn and his father.

Sylvain lets his free hand brush across his temple, into his tacky hair, to the trembling pulse in his neck. The skin he ached to touch when he sent himself flying down the staircase is rough with dirt and scum, but no less beautiful. He’s still so beautiful.

When Sylvain’s fingers trace back up to his cheekbone, Felix is already looking at him. He seems stable now, coherent, and it’s a relief.

“What happened to your hair?” Sylvain grabs a wisp between two fingers.

“Felt like a change.” Felix’s voice is a sarcastic scrape in his throat.

Sylvain laughs, and it’s a relief when Felix smiles up at him, eyes glinting with life.

“I was afraid they’d recognize me.” Felix admits, his eyes sliding shut as Sylvain runs a thumb across his temple. “I didn’t know what they’d do to me if they found me, so I cut it off.”

“What happened, Felix? Where have you been?”

Felix plants a hand against the bedspread and pushes up. Sylvain helps situate him in an upright position, sliding to sit next to him on the small bed. Felix rests his head on his shoulder.

“It was an ambush. They knew we were coming. Saw an opportunity to take out some Crests and took it.”

They knew they were coming. They targeted them. Him and Felix. With Sylvain not there they had double the forces to target Felix.

It sends him reeling.

“Don’t.” Felix grabs his hand, sliding his palm against Sylvain’s trembling grip. “Don’t think that way.”

Sylvain laces their fingers together, staring down at their legs and trying not to cry.

“How can I not?”

“Because it doesn’t matter now,” Felix insists. “It wouldn’t have changed anything. It would have made it worse.”

Sylvain shakes his head, squeezes his hand. “I would have protected you, you know I would have.”

Felix hums with laughter, pulling his hand away.

“You did, and you didn’t even know it.”

“Felix, that’s not—”

Sylvain’s voice dies in his throat. There, pooling in his shaking palm, is a ball of white light. It’s small, flickering weakly, but the undeniable warmth pooling in his veins is there.

“You taught me well, you moron.” Felix smiles, the shadows on his face long and harrowing against the bright light of his weak magic. “It didn’t do much, but it was enough to push on every night.” He turns away, and the light fades as he closes his fist. “I thought I was going to die, when the Wyverns found me. Surrounded me. I nearly did, and they left me there for dead when the beasts got out of control. There was so much blood. It was—”

“Stop,” Sylvain begs, wrapping his hand around Felix’s wrist.

Felix doesn’t, because when has he ever stopped himself from barreling straight into the eye of a storm?

“I thought I was going to die, and all I could think about was you, and how I couldn’t leave you behind. I couldn’t leave you alone.”

“You didn’t.” Sylvain brushes the meager length of his bangs out of his face, and Felix leans into his palm. “You came home.”

Felix exhales, and he smiles. It’s the same smile he wears when he succeeds, when he wins.

“I would have done anything to come home to you.”

Felix is looking at him, into his eyes, and it breaks everything Sylvain had left locked away in his chest.

Felix is home. He rose from the dead to crawl home to him.

Felix’s face falls, a blurry portrait. Sylvain’s crying. He hadn’t even realized he started, and Felix’s hands on his face shouldn’t surprise him, but they do. The fact that he’s here, touching his tears, asking him what’s wrong, telling him he’s okay, is a miracle. It’s a blessing he didn’t earn. He doesn’t deserve this.

“I…” Sylvain doesn’t even know what to say. He missed him? He was a mess without him? How he was so afraid of living in a world without Felix by his side?

None of it seems enough.

“I love you.”

Felix sucks in a breath, and Sylvain catches his hand on the back of Felix’s neck, falling forward.

“I love you, Felix,” Sylvain says again, pressing his forehead to Felix’s, relishing in the flush that makes his skin warm against his own. “I love you so much.”

Felix doesn’t say anything for a moment, just stares back with something akin to confusion.

“Are you sure you’re not dead, too?” Felix asks, placing a hand on his chest, moving it around, finding his heartbeat and freezing.

Sylvain chokes on a wet laugh.

“If I am, then I’m where I want to be.” Sylvain brushes his nose against Felix’s. “You’re right here.”

Felix curls a fist into Sylvain’s shirt, taking deep breaths and laughing.

“Look at you. Stealing my thunder.” Felix brushes his fingertips against Sylvain’s cheek. “Rude.”

Sylvain feels struck dumb. He stares blankly back, and Felix rolls his eyes.

“Sylvain,” Felix smiles at him, annoyance unable to hide the sheer fondness in his eyes. “Of course I love you, you fool.”

“Oh,” Sylvain says, and he’s about to cry again.

Felix takes pity on him, burying his face in his neck and placing a kiss on his thundering pulse.

“Stay?” He asks, and what choice does Sylvain have but to follow as Felix falls back against the bed, wrapping his arms around him and burying his face in his chest. Felix's hands are in his hair, trailing his spine, squeezing him as tightly as his shaking grip can manage. And he hears Felix’s voice above him, like a prayer coming from the heavens.

“I love you. I love you. I love you.” 

**Harpstring Moon**

Sylvain sleeps under three quilts when the weather gets warmer. He used to never sleep under any quilts at all, choosing to enjoy whatever Faerghus weather decided to call heat in the moment.

Now, though? He smiles before he even opens his eyes, the weight of heavy quilts and a body against his chest. He grazes his hand up Felix’s back, relishing in the easy movement of his breathing. He never used to think someone’s breathing could put him at ease, but the shift of his body and the heat of his exhales against his neck keep him tethered to the earth.

Felix groans as Sylvain keeps touching him, swatting his chest as he curls his fingers in his hair. It’s growing in slowly, but Sylvain can feel the length as he brushes his bangs away when they eat, fingers carding through longer hair each day.

“Stop thinking,.” Felix rumbles.

“You sure you want that?” Sylvain asks, kissing the top of his head. “I was thinking about you.”

Felix gives him a cold stare, and Sylvain pokes the corner of his mouth, where he’s failing to hide a smile.

“Is this what it’s going to be like?” Felix asks, swatting Sylvain’s hands away. “Being with you?”

“You have no idea what you’re in for, Fe.” Sylvain presses another kiss to his forehead. He can't stop. “Wait until the war’s over. There’ll be fields of your favorite flowers, songs written in your honor, a sword crafted for your hand…”

“I’m starting to wish I died in that hole.”

Sylvain rolls them over, and Felix yelps when the cold air hits his legs. Above Felix’s squawking protests, Sylvain makes a mental note to bring more blankets into their room before night falls, and the thought jolts him.

Their room.

Their home.

Their  _ life _ .

Sylvain closes his eyes, letting the familiar snark of Felix’s voice carry him into the summer.

**Author's Note:**

> next fic is going to be fun i Promise
> 
> yell at me @keysmashlesbian on the tumblr dot com!


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